


Take Off In Just Weeks!

by crowry



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 19:34:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12464427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowry/pseuds/crowry
Summary: Nureyev always seems to be one step ahead, but when they finally meet again, Juno catches sight of him first.





	Take Off In Just Weeks!

**Author's Note:**

> I was talking to Meg and Emma about how in all the reunion scenarios I think of for Juno and Peter, I assume they see each other simultaneously or Peter catches sight of Juno first. By the time I'd finished saying it, this fic had happened and now here we are.
> 
> As usual, the title is a horse_ebooks tweet. (Look, I have ONE GIMMICK! ITS FINE!)

Whenever Juno thinks about a possible reunion with Peter Nureyev, he can't help but expect glamor, sparkling lights and beautiful people and the heady thrill of cosmetics laced with poison. Or, depending on the day, a dark hole in the Martian desert, a lot of blood, and the sight of Nureyev pulling off his disguise. Disguise after disguise after disguise, all of them saying "Juno" like it's really the words "you're too late." Regardless of setting, the Nureyev in his mind is full of his mistakes. Leaving, not leaving, things he should've said. He was always one step behind Peter Nureyev. Slow on the uptake, the dame in distress, the duped detective. 

Most days, he figures that chance is just gone. Nureyev is a name on the stale domed breeze, whipped away into the atmosphere the second it leaves the dome. He has nothing to come back for. Mars is in the past, and the galaxy is infinite. 

Just like the stupid spaceport.

The Hyperion City Spaceport is an artistic but utterly inaccessible nautilus shaped building on the outskirts of the city, closed in on three sides by Olympus Mons, the Tower, and a stretch of desert so uninviting no one bothered to name it. It's at least a hundred years old, designed by some intergalactically famous architect who thought it was a clever design, but mostly it means that if you come in the wrong door at the bottom, you're screwed. 

Juno hasn't had a lot of need for the spaceport, something he's always counted as a blessing. Even in the HCPD, the port wasn't really their jurisdiction—it has its own laws, technically it's a no mans land or whatever—so he's only been a handful of times. 

It's not urgent today, which is good, because Juno parked in the wrong lot, took the wrong train at the bottom of the stupid building, took an elevator up 30 stories, and he's nowhere near Terminal N-30. He's supposed to be meeting a guy who has some footage on his pretzel shop's security camera but it's too busted to send digitally. Anyway, it's Rita's day off. He's trying to be better about not bugging her when she's off. 

He's loitering, trying to decide if he should call Rita anyway or just suck it up and walk the whole four miles up the stupid, awful spiral of this stupid, awful building to Patty's Pretzels, when he catches sight of—someone. 

It's impossible. It shouldn't be possible. This is Hyperion City, the closest thing Juno's got to a promise, and this is the Spaceport. If Juno looked out the right window of this place he could probably see that hotel. The nice one. Could that really—is that really him?

But really, could he forget the silhouette, the slope of his shoulders? His long arms elegant in those horrible chairs that've been the same design for millennia? Or that cologne. The same damn cologne. They say scent memory is the strongest, the most evocative, and maybe that's why Juno is moving before he remembers to turn away and tell himself it's just his mind playing tricks on him. It's wishful thinking. It's just some other schmuck wearing that cologne. 

It feels like Juno's veins are full of ice, like all the blood just evaporated from him. He can't remember what he's doing here. What is _Nureyev_ doing here? 

For once, he's got the drop on Peter Nureyev. He's got the—upper hand? No. No, fuck, that's not how he wants to think anymore. It's not a competition, is it? It's not.

But it makes him bold, knowing that for once he's got one over on Nureyev, and maybe it's not a competition but it would be a waste not to use it. He comes up behind him, drops into the seat at his back, and says, "Hey—Nureyev?"

Maybe he could've thought it through a little more. Maybe he could've catalogued the possible reactions Nureyev might have to someone in public knowing his secret name or whatever, or maybe just to Juno being there. Maybe he would've thought Nureyev might knife him immediately, or brush him off, or grab his throat with those surprisingly strong, spidery hands.

What happens is this: Juno can see the hairs on Nureyev's neck stand on end, his smooth skin pimples with gooseflesh, and he turns around slowly, already saying, "Hmm?"

Whatever else Nureyev meant to say clearly dies in his mouth, and his expression slackens. Juno might've hit him in the face, or asked him for a punch.

The silence that stretches between them is an intergalactic flight. It's the pause before the first death notification you make on the force. It's every time you lose all your words, every time something bad happens a world away and you think maybe it's your fault. But then the next thing Peter Nureyev says—and it is him, it's definitely him, those sharp teeth and those warm clear eyes—is, "Juno."

It's a sigh of relief, that word. Hearing it, half the tension in Juno's shoulders just... melts out. He can't help but feel like everything in this shit world is going to be OK, hearing his name like that. But Nureyev has always made him feel like that. He just didn't think he'd ever get it again. He doesn't deserve it. 

Maybe it wasn't just the sense of surprise that made him bold, because he still feels it. He still feels lightheaded from the scent of him, maybe a little from the relief—maybe he's just lost a couple important brain cells from holding his breath so long—but he finds himself saying, "Oh, so you've heard of me. Juno Steel."

He holds out his hand, and Nureyev smiles that fox's smile and twists in his chair to shake it. And for once, maybe for the first time ever, Peter Nureyev is lost for words.


End file.
